


Hiding in Plain Sight

by Ultra



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, White Collar
Genre: Angst, Art, Chance Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Loneliness, M/M, Male Friendship, Pain, Painting, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Series, Talking, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-Shot, set late 2015/early 2016. It wasn’t such an odd place for strangers to meet. All kinds of people frequented art galleries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hiding in Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theron09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theron09/gifts).



It wasn’t such an odd place for strangers to meet.

All kinds of people frequented art galleries. Men, women, and children, both the old and the young. There were those who were serious collectors and those that just liked to look around. People who were genuinely interested in learning more about the paintings and statues, and people who were just sheltering from the rain or killing time. Some planning to invest in a masterpiece and others with plans to take what they wanted for free. Neal Caffrey used to belong to that last group, but it had been a while now.

Chicago wasn’t a place he had ever spent much time in before, but then that was kind of the point. The less he knew a place, the less that place and it’s people knew him. Caffrey never made a name for himself in the windy city so it was about as safe as any place in the US could be, at least whilst he figured out if New York was ever going to be an option again. He hoped so.

Every painting was a story to take his mind off his own life, which was good, because each person he passed by seemed to be a reminder of what he was missing. Neal tried not to notice happy couples, eccentric men with bald heads and glasses, men and women alike in smart suits and ties.

It was impossible not to notice one man in particular. Sat on a bench staring straight ahead at a piece Neal himself had often admired. It was the irony of the situation that got his attention. A man of action in a room full of human emotion spread on canvas, though Neal suspected he was the only one up to now to recognise the hero in their midst.

“Paris Street, Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte,” he said as he made his approach, sitting down on the other end of the bench. “Amazing work, isn’t it?”

“Er, yeah. It’s... nice,” said the man in the sweatshirt and baseball cap, keeping his eyes forward.

“Really? You think nice? Hmm. I guess there are many ways for the setting and its characters to be construed. I always thought of it being kind of sad. All those lonely people wandering around in the rain. Doesn’t exactly evoke the warm and fuzzies.”

“Life can’t always be warm and fuzzy,” said the mystery man with a hint of a smile.

Neal leaned over and replied in a low voice. “Certainly not warm for a guy who spent seventy years on ice.”

Steve Rogers had wide eyes and an almost gaping mouth as he looked his new acquaintance full in the face. Neal tried not to grin, but it was practically impossible.

“It’s okay, I’m not about to announce to the whole place that Captain America is sitting here. You’d be the next exhibit before I could blink, and I blink pretty fast,” he told him. “Of course, you’d be the best distraction if I was still in the business, but I’m not,” he said, shaking his head, not even bothering to explain further.

“Should I know who you are?” asked Steve, staring intently at a man he was pretty sure just implied he was a thief.

“No. I’m hoping nobody around here knows who I am actually. Kind of like you, Cap.”

“It’s Steve,” he told him with a smile.

“Neal” he replied, offering a hand.

Steve took that hand and shook it firmly.

“I’ll be honest, I’m hoping the same thing. A little peace and quiet is a really welcome thing sometimes. A little normality, I guess.”

“I can imagine a gallery being a good place for that,” Neal considered. “Everything here is so much older than everyone looking at it, stops you feeling quite so out of place.”

“That’s part of it.” Steve nodded. “And you?”

“I like art.” Neal shrugged, not willing to say more. “So, this painting isn’t a favourite? You’re just happy staring at anything?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I actually like this one more than most. Y’know you say it shows sadness, loneliness, but that’s not what I see,” said Steve, staring some more at the painting. “I mean, sure, the people in the background, that’s probably true for them, but look at the couple in front.”

“In the foreground,” Neal corrected like a reflex, apologising immediately he saw the look on Steve’s face.

“The couple, they don’t care that it’s raining, and they’re not lonely because they have each other. I don’t know, I guess it gives me hope somehow.”

Neal looked from Steve to the gallery wall and took another look at Caillebotte’s work. He supposed he could see what he meant.

“Hope’s important,” he agreed, nodding his head. “Unfortunately, in my experience at least, life isn’t always so simple. Find a woman to love and be happy, sure, but it’s too easy for them to... to slip through your fingers.”

Steve turned to stare at him, almost sure he saw tears welling in blue eyes not unlike his own. This guy knew loss, though Steve couldn’t be sure what kind. Death or just absence, it wasn’t clear. Steve knew both in different ways, so at least he could sympathise no matter what.

“I know what it’s like, to lose people.”

“Probably the only thing that makes it even slightly easier is knowing you’re not the only one suffering.” Neal sighed. “But hey, you’re a hero. Saving lives, saving cities. You do great things, that has to help ease the pain.”

“Does it?” asked Steve with a sardonic smile. “You have no idea.”

Neal wanted to tell him he really did have every idea about what it was like to do good things and feel no better for them. He had tried it in France. Faking his death to keep his friends, his family safe, it was the only thing to do, but leaving them was the worst feeling in the world for Neal. In Paris, he had tried to start ever, to continue the kind of good works he had done with Peter and the team in New York. He helped anonymously, behind a mask in his own way, just as Captain America might, even if he was fighting for a different type of justice. It didn’t fill the void. If it were that simple, he wouldn’t be back so soon.

“I’ll say one thing for it,” said Steve, gesturing towards the painting, clearly going for a subject change to break the tension that seemed to have settled in too easily. "It's beautiful. Even in the rain, who doesn't love Paris?”

“It can get a little boring,” said Neal knowingly. “Sometimes that building there, reminds me of the Flat Iron.”

“You spent time in New York?” asked Steve immediately.

Neal almost literally face-palmed. For a man who was usually ten steps ahead of everyone, he knew he just said something very stupid. Of all people, Steve Rogers didn’t need reminding of NYC, the city in which he was born and raised, the city where hell had rained down from the sky on him and his team a couple of years ago now.

“Maybe too much time,” said Neal anyway.

Steve nodded.

“Yeah. I get that.”

Silence reigned for a good five, maybe ten minutes after that as the two men sat lost in their own thoughts. Both Steve and Neal stared unseeing into the Paris street created from Caillebotte’s brush, perhaps picturing themselves there, or elsewhere, with those they loved that had so easily become unobtainable.

“You, er... you feel like going somewhere for a drink, Neal?” asked Steve eventually. “I don’t have any friends in Chicago, and whilst that was kind of the point in being here, might be nice to have somebody to talk to for a while.”

“I never turn down a free glass of Merlot,” said Neal with a winning smile, placing his hat back on his head at its usual stylish angle.

One man who was often revered as a hero and another marked as a villain for so long. They were perhaps an unlikely pair of friends, but there was a list of similarities between their lives that was far too long to ignore. A true love lost; a best friend on the opposite side of the line; lives that didn’t turn out anything liked they planned when they were younger. Two mysterious men, perhaps lying to themselves more than anyone. Hiding in plain sight from a world they no longer knew their place in.

Sad as it seemed, at least they weren’t alone anymore.


End file.
